"As far as I know before Leareth landed in my lap I was not the victim of any malicious divine coincidence!"

He pets her. "I am sure you would have gotten there." 

"That's very sweet of you to say."

"Aww." 

Vanyel spends a little longer asking questions and trying to think of other hypotheticals, but he's clearly getting tired, and they seem to have come to a reasonable stopping point.

Leareth suggests he go get some rest, and they can reconvene later. 

"Bye, thanks for hearing us out without freaking out."

"Oh, I was thinking I'd be polite and do my freaking out in private afterward." 

"Also reasonable."

He smiles at them, though it seems a little forced, and heads out. 

The rest of that day is uneventful. 

The party from the North returns north when all their members are recovered and clear of contagion.

And the Valdemaran side of the delegation return to Haven afterward, via Savil's Gate. 

Savil has nonzero worry about the Heartstone in Haven affecting her and Van; it's valuable for him to be in Haven so he can throw his weight behind Rolan's proposal, he has a lot of standing in Valdemar due to his fame, but Savil does tell Leareth and Belrun that if either of them seem to be acting oddly, she wants them to inform her so she can relocate them to Forst Reach or something. 

Their ability to tell is limited from this distance but sure.

Van also suggests he should come visit the north at some point, to talk more with Leareth and to hear about Belrun's research just in case that bit was important, but Rolan wants him to see the drama in Haven through first. 

They can write lots of letters, perhaps.

Van's first letter isn't very contentful, and mostly consists of whining about the ENDLESS "Council" meeting, with the permanently instated lords and also all the other nobles who declared themselves the replacement "Council" when everyone was up north. Apparently it lasted six hours and consisted of a LOT of people yelling at each other, and almost none of the agenda Randi had prepared for it was actually covered. Randi's hope is that everyone has gotten their feelings aired, though, and that the next meeting on the schedule will be somewhat more productive. 

What do those feelings seem to be?

Van's next letter has a more fleshed-out picture, because he and Randi spend nearly a week doing individual and small-group meetings with all the concerned stakeholders here.

Many of the minor nobles in Haven, especially those who traveled in because of rumours, are extremely concerned about Leareth having potentially betrayed them, but in a way that seems mostly due to their having almost no information on him or about the actual events up north. Sitting down with them, listening gravely to their concerns and thanking them for bringing it up, and then conveying that Belrun and Leareth were questioned under Truth Spell about it and also that Leareth himself was seriously ill for a bit and that Belrun risked herself every day to treat the sick Heralds and lords, calms down these worries a lot. 

(Vanyel thinks that one of the predominant things going on here is just people feeling excluded and out of the loop on obviously important goings-on.) 

Separately, of course, there are all the ridiculous ruffled feathers about Jisa's parentage. Poor Jisa has apparently been running to her governess or Melody in tears every day, complaining that the other children are mocking her for being not just a bastard, but a child of infidelity. Randi goes with telling the truth on this; that he wasn't King yet or even the heir, his lifebonded partner was distraught over their inability to conceive a child, and Vanyel offered a favour which is considered commonplace among the Tayledras. This...gets him a lot of weird looks, but apparently satisfies the important people that there's no juicy drama to be exploited for their gain here. 

Belrun thinks they are handling everything very well and hopes Jisa's peers will calm down soon.

They spend a couple of weeks just hearing out everyone's concerns. Randi does a week straight of afternoon audiences, during which random citizens of Haven can come express their fears and grievances to him. Vanyel finds this the most miserable thing in the entire world, and he doesn't feel like it's accomplishing anything, but he says Randi claims it'll make people feel like their opinions are being heard and taken into account for the upcoming decisions on what to do, even if their opinions are in fact very unlikely to change things. 

It sounds time-consuming but likely effective.

And then it's time for the big official meeting where Randi announces that their default proposal is Belrun as heir. Van sends a letter the day before it's scheduled, complaining about how long the agenda is and how it's inevitably going to go over, and how he has to Gate Rolan into the room because nobody thought to redesign the oldest parts of the Palace to be Companion-friendly. 

Isn't Van allergic to Gates.

Well, Savil tripped down some stairs and broke her leg, which is SUSPICIOUS and also means the Healers have ordered her to rest, and Kilchas and Sandra are on the western border dealing with some Pelagirs beasties. He'll manage. 

Does he want to borrow somebody. Pelagirs beasties are ALSO suspicious and if Someone wants Van out of commission from Gating she's got something to say about that and it's "borrow a mage".